


Jaguar's Fire

by solarmau



Category: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Compliant, One Shot, Post Season 2, i might add tags later now i go a mimir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25481512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarmau/pseuds/solarmau
Summary: "She wasn’t going to be a human anymore, she really wasn’t. She was going to stay like this, a gigantic mega-jaguar with six legs and three tails. She won’t be able to talk anymore. Song had been a mega-monkey for her entire life, unable to speak or do anything a normal human can do. She can’t talk to her daughter and tell her how much she loved her, she can’t hug her husband after being separated from him for thirteen years.This was the life that awaited Kipo. She found her mom after having lost her for her entire life, and she couldn’t tell her how happy she was to see her. And her dad…"--an alternate universe where kipo is unable to return back into a human at the end of season 2
Comments: 3
Kudos: 97





	Jaguar's Fire

She remembered every detail of the picture of her and her parents. She was a baby, not even a month old, a paw raised as she was held by her mom that was attempting to keep her rowdy little living experiment in place for just a few minutes. Her dad was holding the camera up in his left hand and all three of them were smiling like there was nothing wrong in the world.

She remembered the feeling that picture gave her. It was hard to describe, she didn’t know if that feeling even had a name. It was like a fire, that was a good way to describe it. When she thought of that picture, she felt safe and warm like she was sitting in front of a campfire. But it also made her feel powerful and strong, it gave her more strength than she ever was aware she could ever have. She felt like a wildfire when she first transformed, full of rage and destructive raw power that she was unable to control.

She promised that she’d never let that fire inside of her grow that wild ever again. Her fire was to protect people.

When she took her jaguar form to save everyone in the coliseum, she was aware that there was a possibility that she wouldn’t return. She would be stuck as a mega-jaguar forever, but she was willing to do that if it meant her friends and the other mutes would survive.

But she was so, so afraid as she was pushing against the massive gold-filled tree with her paws. The tree wasn’t budging. She was doing everything that she could, but the tree wasn’t moving. Even with her mom’s help, a towering mega-mute almost the height of the tree itself, couldn’t get the tree to fall. She heard the cries of the mutes trapped in the coliseum as the liquid gold rose higher and higher. Their voices cracked with fear and dread. She was trying so hard, she was doing everything that she could.

Gold suddenly burst from the soft surface on the tree that her mother was pushing against with her hand. She reared back and cried in anguish as the hot gold burned into her fur and flesh. Kipo froze for a moment as her mother’s shriek rang through her ears, but was snapped back to attention when gold burst from the bark just inches away from her paws.

She was pushing as hard as she could, ignoring the aching in her muscles and the splinters that were digging into the pads of her paws. A growl of determination rumbled in her chest as she continued to push on, but a tick in the back of her mind told her that she couldn’t do this. The heat from the gold as it burst from the tree, the cries of fear as their demise was slowly nearing.

Among all the sounds flooding her senses, Wolf’s voice rang in her ears.

“ _ KIPO! _ ”

Her voice sounded so desperate and afraid, Kipo never heard her voice get that way before. She shouted all the way from the other side of the coliseum in hopes that Kipo would hear her, and she did.

Kipo’s fire ignited inside of her in a way that she hadn’t felt before. She felt her muscles expanding and stretching, her bones elongating. Two more tails grew from behind her, swishing around like serpents. Adrenaline pumped through her body as it grew more and more in an instant. Another pair of legs grew from her sides, and a thick mane of dark fur ran down her back.

She reared up on her hind legs and roared, feeling stronger than she had ever been before. She slammed her paws down on the tree and pushed hard, the roots being lifted from the earth as the tree began to give way. Song joined beside her, attempting to ignore the burning on her hand as she used her other five to push against the tree.

With their combined strength the tree quickly toppled over with a boom, a cloud of dust being brought up from the tree’s thick leaves and branches falling against the ground. Kipo closed her eyes until the dust cloud settled. When she opened them, she looked down. She was so high up now, and to think she thought that her size was jarring back when she only had four legs.

She stumbled back in surprise at the sight and yowled, falling on her fear as she started quivering. She thought of the picture, she had every detail memorized. That feeling, that ‘anchor feeling’ wasn’t there. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know what she was doing wrong. Was it because she didn’t have a picture to look at? But she knew what the picture looked like, shouldn’t that be enough?

She closed her eyes and whimpered, her large claws digging into the earth. She couldn’t look at herself, it hurt too much. She kept her eyes closed so she could focus on thinking about her anchor. She tried to remember every single detail in the picture in an attempt to get the anchor working, to recreate that warm feeling when she saw that picture when Benson was holding it to her. 

She felt her mom’s large hands embracing her, pulling her close as she barked sympathetically to her. Song was trying to talk, Kipo could tell her barks and grunts were attempts to form words to comfort her terrified daughter. Kipo quivered in horror in her arms as her reality weighed heavier and heavier on her shoulders.

She wasn’t going to be a human anymore, she really wasn’t. She was going to stay like this, a gigantic mega-jaguar with six legs and three tails. She won’t be able to talk anymore. Song had been a mega-monkey for her entire life, unable to speak or do anything a normal human can do. She can’t talk to her daughter and tell her how much she loved her, she can’t hug her husband after being separated from him for thirteen years. 

This was the life that awaited Kipo. She found her mom after having lost her for her entire life, and she couldn’t tell her how happy she was to see her. And her dad…  _ oh no _ …

She looked down as all of her friends and Lio gathered below her. They were so much smaller now. She shrunk away from them, afraid that she’d crush them under one of her six paws. She didn’t think about how her dad would be all alone after she transformed again. He lost his wife, now his daughter. She whimpered and lowered her head to them, ears pinned back. She couldn’t cry in this form, she just felt an aching in her eyes.

She let out a low yeowl, trying to form the word  _ ‘sorry’  _ as best as she could. She was sorry to her dad for not thinking about him, for jumping into jaguar-mode time and time again without listening to him. He had to leave the burrow because of her, he lost his wife and home because of her. She was sorry to Wolf for leaving her little sister behind and becoming a mute, the one thing she hated above all else. She was sorry to everyone else for putting them in so much danger, just narrowly saving them from a painful, burning end. 

She threw her head back and let out a long, mournful roar into the sky that made the ground shake and the trees quiver. As her roar came to an end, she pressed her head into her mother’s chest and made several more miserable whines and mews. Her mother’s hand stroked her back and the thick fur of mane on her head. 

What was she going to do now?

* * *

The moon and the stars gazed down at Kipo as she lay down in the grass. The gang had set up camp as night started to fall, Lio cooking food that Wolf found over a campfire. Song was grooming Kipo’s mane with her hands, either out of motherly or monkey instinct. Kipo sat a good distance away from the campfire, mostly out of fear that she’d squash them. But they went up to her and sat around her anyway.

Kipo hoped that she would have been able to talk to her mom, that’s what she needed right now more than anything else. She wanted to hear the words from her mom saying everything would be fine. She expected it to be like the talking dog movies that were back in the burrow that somehow managed to be salvaged from the old world, where the animals could talk but humans couldn’t understand them. That didn’t make sense now that she thought about it, actually.

Asher and Dahlia were sitting on Kipo’s forepaw. They were talking about their time with the Timbercats. Dahlia explained why she was carrying an axe now. She said that she proved herself to the Timbercats to the point where they gave her her own axe. Asher talked about the flea Pierre that she apparently bonded with, though that flea would probably be friends with anybody that gave him food.

Kipo never imagined that she’d be in this position, laying here in the form of a giant purple jaguar with her childhood friends sitting on her giant paw. Hearing them talk made her feel better, at least. She was glad to hear that they enjoyed the surface as much as she could. Kipo wanted to talk back and tell her the stories she had from her time on the surface, but she settled for listening to theirs.

Benson and Troy were sitting together on one of her hind legs, but she felt them get off behind her. Her large tufted ear flicked when she heard them walking towards her front-end. Benson wasn’t afraid to get right up in Kipo’s face as she rested her head on the grass. He patted one of the indexes on her paw before holding up a bag of shrimp chips he had stowed away in his backpack.

“Hey, Kipo!” He shouted as he waved up at her. He raised his voice, assuming that because he was so much smaller than her she had a hard time hearing. That was something she had to learn to deal with, all of the things she could see, smell and hear now that her jaguar was awoken. She could hear him just fine even when she was standing several stories above them. “You hungry?”

Kipo opened her mouth slowly as he opened the bag of chips and dumped them into her jassive jaw. Shrimp chips were so small now, it felt like she was eating a bunch of stale ants. Once he stepped away, she closed her mouth slowly and cautiously before she licked the shrimp chips and swallowed them. That probably would fill her stomach which was the size of a school bus, but she appreciated the gesture. She made a chuffing sound as thanks, the wind being expelled from her maw almost knocking his hat off his head. 

“You thirsty, Kipo?” He asked as he continued digging through the bag. Kipo made a low sound in her chest that meant ‘yes’. He pulled out a can of Explosion Berry Soda and gave it a shake. She would have preferred water, but this would do. He pointed the can at her as it burst open, the purple soda shooting onto her large, barbed tongue. The soda lost firepower quickly and Benson finished the rest. 

Her ears perked up when she saw Wolf climbing onto her paw and sitting with the others. Kipo made an excited meow sound and her three tails thumped against the ground at the sight of her. She was quiet the entire time ever since they left the coliseum. Once camp was set up and their food was cooking over a fire, she took off. She promised Kipo that she’d be back, though—which was the first time that she had spoken in hours—and Kipo was glad she kept that promise.

Her ears drooped when she saw how red and puffy Wolf’s eyes were. She kept her head low and pulled her pelt over her face, but Kipo still saw. Kipo never wanted to see Wolf cry ever, especially not because of her. She brought her head close to Wolf, feeling her reach a small hand out to pet the fur on her cheek.  _ I’m still here, I’m still Kipo. You didn’t lose your sister _ . She couldn’t say the words, she only managed a low purr that rumbled in her chest.

She saw that Wolf managed a smile as she looked up at her. If she could figure out how to change back, the first thing she’d do is hug Wolf. She’d give her the biggest hug. She couldn’t do that now without squashing her like a bug. When she was still trying to figure out how to control her paws, she was imagining all the things she’d do when she was a giant powerful mega-jagur. Now all she was thinking about was all of the things she’d do as a normal person with her friends.

Mandu was sitting over at the campfire with her dad, saliva dripping from her mouth as she watched smoke rise from the meal that was cooking. Mandu knew who she was, she knew the giant purple jaguar was still her Kipo. But whenever Kipo flashed her teeth or flexed her claws, the tiny pig squealed and went running away from her. Was that what everyone else felt? They knew that she was  _ Kipo _ , obviously, but they were still afraid of her like she was a dangerous animal and not a person?

She heard her dad clapping his hands together. “Dinner’s done, everyone.” He announced. Everyone scrambled off of Kipo and jogged over to the campfire. Wolf stayed, though. She pressed against Kipo and brought her knees up to her chest. Lio walked up to her and politely smiled. “Do you mind if I have a moment with my wife and daughter?”

Wolf hesitated for a moment, but gave in and jumped off her paw and silently walked over to the campfire with the others. Kipo wished she could ask her to stay, it hurt to watch her walk away. She frowned and her tufted ears drooped as she saw everyone sitting down with warm bowls in hand, laughing as they talked among each other. Lio placed a hand on her side and sighed, knowing how badly she wanted to be with them.

“Wanna look at the stars, Kipo?” He asked in a voice so soft she almost didn’t hear it. Kipo tried to nod. 

He sat down between her and Song, leaning his back against Kipo’s large paw. Song lay down so she could be as close to eye-level as she could with him. She rested one of her hands on the grass close to him, and he reached his hand out to touch her. She was scared to do anything beyond that. She just got her husband back, she wasn’t about to squash him.

He smiled up at her, and she grunted in response. “Happy family reunion, am I right?” He forced a laugh as he patted Kipo and Song with his hands. Song gave him a pity smile, but Kipo couldn’t even try and pretend that she was content with this new dynamic that she was stuck in. “Hey, Kipo. Look at me—It’s going to be alright, okay? I’m fine, I’m more worried about you two than you two are of me.”

Everyone kept saying that. ‘Everything will be alright’, not  _ good _ , just  _ alright _ . She was trapped in a prison that was her own body and she was unable to be a normal kid again, she was going to be a jaguar forever. That wasn’t ‘alright’ by her definition. But what else could she do about it?

Lio tapped her side and pointed up at the sky. “Do you see your sign, Kipo? Ares?”

Kipo raised her head and looked up at the sky. Ares wasn’t a very bright constellation like Ursa Major or Canis Major, yet she could always find it. The ram sat in the sky between Pisces and Taurus, the dim lights of the stars gazing down at Kipo. This was the same asterism that she and Wolf saw on their first night on the surface. She remembered the feeling of seeing Ares in the sky for the first time, the real sky and not a picture in a book.

Looking up at her sign made her feel better somehow. Stargazing with her mom and dad helped her feel like a normal kid. She opened her maw and let out a low meow to answer him.

“Good, Kipo.” He said. How did he know that she was saying ‘yes’? Either he was just guessing, or it was just a dad thing and he could just tell. “Can you tell me the brightest star in Ares?”

_ Hamal, or Alpha Arietis _ . She thought in confidence as she let out a chuff. It was 20.2 parsecs from earth, it had a brightness magnitude of 2.0, and it is the fiftieth brightest star in the sky. She was making a bunch of animal sounds to answer him, yet he was still patting her and praising her like she was actually speaking.

“She loves the stars,” He was speaking up to Song now. Song’s ears perked, eager to finally hear how her little girl grew up. “She loves astronomy. She’s also into astrology. Like mother, like daughter, right? She used to always ask me what time she was born, then she’d ask what time  _ I _ was born, what time  _ you _ were born. You’re lucky you already wrote our natal charts, you know I don’t understand that stuff.”

Song made a chattering sound as a sort of laugh. She started barking and making some hand gestures. Kipo and Lio didn’t quite understand what she was trying to say, but they nodded along anyway. Once she was done saying whatever it was she was trying to convey, she made a chirping sound. Lio understood it to mean:  _ I want to hear more about her _ .

Lio turned his gaze up to the stars. “She is just like you, Song. She reminds me so much of you that it hurts. God, when she talks all I can think of is you. She’s smarter than the both of us, I tell you. Always asking questions and trying to be the next Galileo, and knowing her she will be.” He turned around to look Kipo in the eye. “I’m so proud of the person our baby girl grew up to be.”

Her dad always talked about how proud he was of her. He’d always put his hand on her shoulders and brag to the other parents about Kipo’s fast knowledge on astronomy, or how they invented a telescope together. That last part got Kipo choked up, and he could tell because he went “Aw” and started petting her fur to comfort her.

_ My dad is proud of me _ . She let that thought marinate in her mind. Her dad is proud of the person she became, even though she wasn’t even a person anymore. After everything, her mom and dad still love her. She’s always going to be loved by her parents, whether she was human or mute.

She purred and closed her eyes slowly. She felt warmth in her chest, warm like a campfire. She didn’t know if she was going to become human again anytime soon, but at least she knew that no matter what happens… she is loved.

* * *

The mega-bunny was standing on its hind legs, eating vegetation from a tree. The entire tree shook when they tugged on the branches with their strong, flat teeth. Kipo’s large form burst from behind the tall decayed building she was hiding from, and the pursuit began.

Kipo had been awkwardly shuffling along on six paws, always careful to now step on any of her friends. After she first reached her full mega form, six legs took a bit of time to get used to. Running on four legs wasn’t so hard to get used to, but getting around on six legs had a completely different rhythm. This was the first time she was running in a full gait, not checking where she was stepping.

Running felt exhilarating, and it was almost liberating running across the remains of Las Vistas and feeling the wind in her fur and earth beneath her paws. If she wasn’t running for the sake of getting a meal, she was doing it solely for the thrill of being able to run.

The distance between her and the mega-bunny were closing quickly. She let out a roar as she jumped into the air, pouncing on the mega-bunny and keeping them down with her weight. Her muzzle wrinkled to a snarl, and gigantic teeth were bared from black lips. Her claws sunk into the mega-bunny, blood pooling and staining their white coat. Kipo’s gaze suddenly stared down at the blood she drew, and for a moment she froze in shock at what she had done.

In that moment of hesitation, the mega-bunny kicked her square in the face and wriggled out of her grip, bounding away before she could even think of trying to catch up with it. Kipo let out a whimper and hung her head in shame before turning around and walking back. Wolf wasn’t going to like to hear that she messed up her hunt.

Kipo shook her mane as a shutter ran down her spine like snowmelt. She didn’t like the person—thing, animal—that she was in that moment. She had that wildfire feeling again, she was too jaguar and not enough Kipo. That drive and instinct to hunt was inside her. She didn’t want it to be, but it was there. Yet she still couldn’t bring herself to… do  _ that _ .

She’s had this predator drive for a while now, long before she even turned into the mega-jaguar. It wasn’t this powerful, uncontrollable urge like how it was just now. But she was aware of it, and that was terrifying. She didn’t look at her friends and feel that urge, luckily. If she ever smelled an animal through the wind, she felt this tugging in her gut telling her to hunt it.

She moaned and growled to herself as she took her sweet time getting back to Wolf. That feeling… that urge to  _ kill _ … she didn’t want to feel that towards her friends. What if next time she wasn’t able to pull back from her jaguar instincts in time? How much of her was just animalistic instinct? How much longer until she was just… an animal?

She saw Wolf standing on top of a building in the distance. Kipo could already see the look of disappointment on her face when she didn’t return with a mega-bunny in her jaws. Kipo sat down on the streets with her head hung low in shame. She opened her mouth to make a sound, but Wolf cut her off.

“Don’t give me that!” Wolf snapped. “I saw what happened, you  _ almost _ had that mega-bunny and you let it go. Why? You need to eat, Kipo. You’re a mega-jaguar! Hone in your predator instincts!”

Kipo let out a yowl in protest.

“I don’t  _ care _ if it’s cute!” Wolf groaned as she slapped her face. “You need to get over it eventually. How do you think your mom survived out here, huh?”

Kipo hadn’t thought about that. She just assumed that her mom lived off of plucking giant fruits or something. The thought of her mom hunting prey and killing it was weird to think about. Maybe if she was a Komodo Dragon and not a monkey, she could picture that easier. Even when Song was controlled by Scarlemagne, she didn’t really see her as a vicious predator.

“Look, Kipo.” Wolf snapped her fingers to get her attention. “If you catch a mega-bunny, then all of us can eat that for  _ weeks _ . Instead of thinking about killing it, think about how you’re going to help feed yourself and the rest of us.”

That made her feel slightly less bad about hunting…  _ slightly _ . The act of killing an animal was one thing, but then there were all of the guts and blood. Just thinking about that made her fur prickle up. No predator instinct would make that any less gross to look at. 

Why did she have to be a mega-jaguar? Why couldn’t she be a mega-hamster or a mega-deer? Something other than an animal that has to hunt to survive. It sounded cool back when at the end of the day she could turn into a normal person eating spaghetti and chips. She has claws and teeth now, and she doesn’t want to use either of them. 

She gave Wolf a look as she whimpered like a puppy.  _ Can we take a break? _ Wolf rolled her eyes and grunted, but she stepped forward in agreement. Kipo pressed her head to the side of the building, feeling Wolf’s tiny feet stepping across her head and settling into her mane of fur. It felt weird, like a bug crawling up her arm. She was starting to learn to get used to this feeling.

“Ready,” Wolf called out.

Kipo walked slowly, making sure not to move her shoulders too much to keep from knocking Wolf back and forth on her back like a ping-pong ball. The others weren't too far away. It was early in the morning and the sky wasn’t even blue yet, they were probably still asleep. Wolf wanted to teach Kipo some hunting skills before they had to get on the move again. Her lessons didn’t pay off necessarily, but it was a step forward at least.

The others were awake and putting away their camp by the time Kipo carried Wolf back. She slowly lowered herself to the ground, only standing back up when she saw Wolf walking towards the others with two feet safe on the ground.

“How was hunting practice?” Benson asked as he walked over to them, an optimistic tone to his voice.

“Do you  _ see  _ a mega-bunny in her teeth?” Wolf pointed to Kipo. “Obviously, we didn’t catch anything.”

“That’s okay!” Benson called up to Kipo when he noticed her ears droop and guilt in her eyes. “This stuff takes time, right? You’ll get the hang of it eventually.”

She didn’t  _ want _ to get the hang of it, that’s the thing. She knew she couldn’t survive off of Benson dumping bags of stale chips into her mouth. Eating meat wasn’t really the problem, it was the killing part that made her stomach turn. Couldn’t she survive while eating plants and stuff? 

Maybe some time alone would do her some good. She started to turn away from the two.  _ I’ll be right back, guys _ . She made a grunt sound before turning and walking away. She heard Wolf calling after her, but Benson assured her that she’d be back. 

She padded over to a lake a short walk away from where their camp was set up. The front-half of the decayed remains of a bus was sticking out in the middle of the water. Some duck mutes that were hanging around the water took off the moment Kipo walked up to them. She whimpered a bit at the look of terror on their faces at the sight of her. Nobody looked at her that way before.

Her chest expanded and fell with a sigh as she knelt down, lapping at the water with her large barbed tongue. Learning to drink was another hurdle she had to get over when getting used to this new body. She had to dip her tongue in the water and curl it backwards almost, and then scoop the water up and deliver it to her mouth. She got used to it after a few laps of water. 

Her ears altered backward on her head when she heard her mother coming to join her. Kipo sort of wanted to be alone right now, but she wasn’t going to push her mother away. Especially after so many years of not having her in the first place. She was welcoming of any mother-daughter bonding she could get, even if said mother and daughter were both mega-mutes.

Song chattered and barked at her as she joined beside her, placing two hands on her daughter’s back and stroking her mane comfortingly. She didn’t know what kind of motherly advice Song was trying to give her. Maybe something along the lines of:  _ It’s hard, but we’re going to get through this together _ .

At least Song had an understanding of what she was going through. But unlike her mother, Kipo wasn’t going to have to be all alone for thirteen years, and she especially wasn’t going to be captured by Scarlemagne. Song wouldn’t let that happen over her dead body.

Song pulled her in for a hug, and Kipo leaned into the embrace. Song stopped talking—or trying to talk—and just silently held her daughter. Kipo felt warm as she was held by her six arms. They listened to the cicada bugs chirping and wolf mutes howling in the distance, marinating in the ambiance of their world around them.

Talking didn’t accomplish what this tender few moments of silent embrace could. Kipo felt safer in her mother’s six arms than anywhere else in the world. She wasn’t alone. That was something she had to keep forgetting, but Song was always there to remind her. She was so warm. Her ear was pressed against her mom’s chest, and she heard the same gentle heartbeat that she listened to when she was only a few days old. Kipo let out a deep purr.

Kipo stood up and pulled away from the embrace. She let out a heavy exhale through her jowls before looking up at Song, giving her a nod. She was ready to try hunting now.


End file.
